Trevor Grove

One way to imprison a suspected terrorist for 90 days or even longer, without any bother from Parliament, would be to give him an Anti-Social Behaviour Order. The Asbo could be drawn up to include a number of hard-to-follow rules such as never to associate with more than one other person in public or use the internet. Once a breach was proved in court, where it would be regarded as a serious criminal offence, the offender could be given a jail sentence of up to five years. Gotcha! Such is the concealed yet far-reaching power of the Asbo that this is a not entirely frivolous hypothesis.

With my wife’s consent, I have just become the lover of a handsome 57-year-old lady. She has a fine round bottom and a comfortable beam. I sought expert advice before embarking on the affair. Ian Burgoyne, marine surveyor, tapped her all over with a little hammer and probed her most intimate parts with a spike. He pronounced her in good condition for her age. Her knees were sound and her hog was free of wet rot, which was evidently a good thing. Mr Burgoyne’s only concern was five slightly cracked frames on the port side. Not knowing exactly what these were, I studied his recommended treatment: ‘The plank sea could be fitted with a seam batten and the frames doubled using oak timbers that are secured to the original frames as well as the hull timbers.’ Ah.

Once a week I put on a suit and go along to the local courthouse, where I am elevated from plain Mister to Your Worship. This wonderfully inappropriate form of address is the only public reward for being one of the country’s 30,000 unpaid lay magistrates who deal with over 95 per cent of criminal cases in England and Wales. We are also entitled to put the letters JP after our names, for Justice of the Peace. But this is discouraged by the Lord Chancellor, as Charlie Falconer still titles himself, lest we be thought to be putting on airs. Sometimes magistrates must do things that stick in the throat a bit. Last week, for example, the bench I was on had to try a man for doing something I didn’t even know was illegal.